Time magazine -- in its infinite wisdom -- has granted the person of the year honor to YOU. Not Bill and Melinda Gates and Bono (2005), George W. Bush (2000 and 2004), The American Solider (2003), The Whistleblowers from FBI, Enron and Worldcom (2002), or Mayor of New York City Rudolph Giuliani (2001).

Time said: "You control the Information Age. Welcome to your world."

To be sure, there are individuals we could blame for the many painful and disturbing things that happened in 2006. The conflict in Iraq only got bloodier and more entrenched. A vicious skirmish erupted between Israel and Lebanon. A war dragged on in Sudan. A tin-pot dictator in North Korea got the Bomb, and the President of Iran wants to go nuclear, too. Meanwhile nobody fixed global warming, and Sony didn't make enough PlayStation3s.

"But look at 2006 through a different lens and you'll see another story, one that isn't about conflict or great men. It's a story about community and collaboration on a scale never seen before. It's about the cosmic compendium of knowledge Wikipedia and the million-channel people's network YouTube and the online metropolis MySpace. It's about the many wresting power from the few and helping one another for nothing and how that will not only change the world, but also change the way the world changes.

If Time believes that the Web 2.0 phenomenon is finally here, is it almost over?

In 1999, a year before the bottom dropped out of the dot-com rage, Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos was pronounced "person of the year."